Dyson vs. Bissell Pet Vac -- Final conclusion

I am sure that overall the Bissell pet vac is fine for people that have a small fluffy dog, short haired dogs, a few cats, or vacuum daily, but it isn't for me.

There are good things about the Bissell pet vac, which I think I covered in previous posts. However, when I got to the really hairy and dirty part of the house (the living room) I quickly began to not like the Bissell so much.

Not only do I have lots of dog hair, but also my dog rolls in plants, dirt, pine needles and so on and she carries a lot of that into the house on her hair. The Bissell not only has a hepa filter, but also some other filter than I have no idea of the purpose. When the other filter clogs, the suction stops. It clogged every couple mintues for me and I finally just removed it. Likely that will eventually cause some other problem, but I don't have the time to stop and clean that out every few minutes.

The Dyson never loses suction is what the commercial says and that is pretty much true. There are some extreme things I have vacuumed that caused my Dyson to almost lose suction, but it isn't an easy thing to do. The Dyson also has no fiters to cause problems.

I do not like the canister emptying on the Bissell either. It is a far more dusty job than the Dyson.

As I said, the Bissell pet vac is not for me and I imagine that in a couple months when I have some extra money I will spring for a new Dyson -- the pet vac model.

Sometimes things are expensive because they are trendy, but Dyson is expensive because it is the best and I will gladly pay the expense again. Vacuuming is not a fun job, why make it worse by having something that doesn't work as well as you really need?

Vermont Teddy Bears must DIE!

I am sooooooooooooooo sick of this commercial. It is ridiculous! The worst part is that they must be selling A LOT of these bears because they can afford to show this commercial a zillion times per day.

Men -- don't fall for it. I can't imagine any woman that would want one of those for Valentines Day. For $70 you can come up with something much better, even if it is just a romantic dinner somewhere.

Some fun comments here -- http://jezebel.com/5148173/what-do-women-want-for-valentines-day

Update on things that suck -- vacs

Yesterday being Superbowl Sunday kept me from doing any major cleaning (thank you football gods!). I actually was curious about my new vac though and decided to take it out of the box and give it a try before the superbowl.

It went together fairly easy, but that was no real thanks to the instructions which I did not feel had enough diagrams to show me which part was which.

The first test is what I call the big step. I think a landing is the right term for it, but I am not really sure. Anyhow it is just 3 steps below our bedroom and the dog sleeps there most nights so it is completely covered with hair most of the time. The new Bissell vac did great on it! Much better than my near death Dyson. It was also on the stairs that I tried a new tool -- the contour brush. By far the best tool for stairs with carpeting that I have ever used! The wondrous attachment is shown in the photo above.

Nobody without carpeted stairs and a big fluffy dog can quite understand how hard stairs are to clean. I have often times had to spend 30 minutes or more just on the stairs. The regular vacuum head is pretty useless because it is so much bigger than the stairs.

After that test I vacuumed the bedroom and it worked as a vacuum should.

Later today I will try the turbo brush. I was never impressed with my Dyson turbo brush, we will see if this one is any better. Also, I will give it another test -- the downstairs near the front door where Pooka not only sheds hair but also shakes off leaves, sticks and other outdoor stuff that easily can clog a vacuum hose.

A couple more good things about my Bissell pet hair vac -- Unlike my Dyson it has a light. I don't know if the new Dysons have a headlight but mine didn't. Also, the attachments actually fit into the holders on the vacuum and don't fall off while you are vacuuming. I think this is the first vac I have ever had where the attachments actually fit in their storage spaces and don't fall out.

So far so good, maybe I won't miss my Dyson as much as I thought I would and maybe not at all.